Category: Uncategorized

I got two kinds of responses to my comments last week on Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey’s efforts to stir up a rationale for more intensive U.S. intervention into the ongoing insurgency-cum-narco-trafficking crisis in Colombia. One type came from a fellow whose e-mail address suggested he was a retired military officer was indignant: “FARC political insurgency? … Continue reading “COLOMBIAN CLARIFICATIONS (OR CONFUSIONS)”

One of the "old causes" embraced in this column – perhaps the most important one – is that of the "isolationist" Old Right. As used by the late Murray Rothbard among others, the term Old Right refers to a loose coalition opposed to the New Deal in both its domestic and foreign aspects. While not … Continue reading “MERE “ISOLATIONISM””

High anxiety in the Taiwan Straits following Republic of China (ROC) President Lee Teng-hui’s "two nations" challenge to the People’s Republic of China raises the question: How should patriotic Americans respond to the Taipei-Beijing confrontation? The answer is: Americans who revere our heritage of freedom and independence must have the courage to defy 1990’s political … Continue reading “American Values in Dire Straits”

I should have known it when I talked to “drug czar” Gen. Barry McCaffrey’s people a couple of weeks ago about the good general’s selective use of information from the Institute of Medicine report his office had commissioned and all they wanted to talk about was McCaffrey’s trip to Colombia and how dangerous it was … Continue reading “The Next War?”

OVERVIEW Pericles’ Funeral Oration is widely seen as a noble statement of core Western values. Noble, doubtless, but the rest is arguable (Western Civilization having had a bad day or two). Pericles – the Athenian FDR? – saw the Athenian Empire as the great defender of freedom – freedom defined, however, by the Athenian Empire … Continue reading “EMPIRE AS A WAY OF DEATH”

It’s easy enough to comprehend the shooting of 14 Serbian farmers in the Kosovan village of Gracko as part of the aftermath of NATO’s war against Yugoslavia. These farmers – along with hundreds, perhaps thousands of ethnic Albanians killed by Serbs before, during and after the bombing campaign phase of the war, should be included … Continue reading “THE EMPIRE’S CASUAL CASUALTIES”

In 1987-91 I must have had too much time on my hands. I actually did an informal survey of what was going on British sociology. It wasn’t pretty. British sociology was "eat up" with Structural Marxism, that French imposture made up by Louis Althusser (Half-Hussar, as I call him) and his merry band. In the … Continue reading “SOCIOLOGY, INDO-EUROPEANS, AND THE DESTINY OF THE WARRIORS”

The flap over Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui’s comment that Taiwan’s relations with mainland China should properly be viewed as "country-to-country, or at least as special state-to-state" relations has been curious and amusing at one level. After all, it merely reflects what has been the reality for several decades at least, and in context what all … Continue reading “LESSONS IN FAILING INTERVENTIONS”

About a year ago, I took part in a heated debate over U.S. foreign policy on a historians’ e-mail list to which I belong. One side, whom I unkindly dubbed "the militarists," took the Goldwater/Buckley/etc. position that Presidents can pretty much do whatever they want and "we" have to support them once the bombs are … Continue reading ““WAR POWERS “: VAGUE, UNDEFINED, AND POST-CONSTITUTIONAL?”

The war in Kashmir between India and Pakistan seems to have calmed down for the moment, but it could still present rich opportunities for the United States to do the wrong thing. President Clinton casually – almost cavalierly? – meddled at an early stage of the conflict without creating serious problems or making new commitments. … Continue reading “KASHMIR: WILL BILL AND MADDIE INTERVENE?”